April 28, 2003: People from across New Hampshire come to two two-hour public hearings in Concord to register their dissatisfaction with the $2.7 billion House budget proposal. The sessions are dominated by talk of cuts to social services: adult care programs, mental health treatment programs and Medicaid, among others.
April 28, 2001: A Concord doctor has been charged with sexually assaulting a patient in her bed at the state’s psychiatric hospital, the Monitor reports. The doctor is also accused of giving the patient addictive drug prescriptions in exchange for sex.
April 28, 2000: The House Judicial Conduct Committee announces it has decided not to investigate state Supreme Court Justice John Broderick or retired justice William Johnson. The committee votes to continue investigating allegations of misconduct by Justice Sherman Horton and Chief Justice David Brock.
April 28, 1974: Gov. Mel Thomson returns to New Hampshire after two days in the Caribbean studying oil refineries. Thomson’s office refuses to say precisely where in the Caribbean area he was.
April 29, 2003: The former Blue Cross-Blue Shield building may not be vacant much longer, the Monitor reports. Local developer Steve Duprey purchased an option on the property this winter and now has several interested tenants, including the College of Lifelong Learning. The college wants to consolidate its administrative offices and local classrooms somewhere in Concord. The chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire also may relocate his office there.
April 29, 2002: After months of campaigning, Democrat Martha Fuller Clark formally announces her second run for Congress, laying out her priorities – protecting children and Social Security and making life better for families.
April 30, 2003: After six months of haggling, the city reaches a tentative deal to buy the former Penacook tannery. The city plans to pay Dana Willis $143,000 for the condemned, contaminated tannery and 2.5 acres of land. The deal means the end of 15 years of uncertainty for Penacook residents.
April 30, 2001: Warren Doane coaches his final baseball game. Concord High’s coach since 1973, Doane has been diagnosed with cancer.
April 30, 2000: Tito Santana and other professional wrestlers perform at Bishop Brady High School in a charity event in memory of slain Epsom police officer Jeremy Charron. The proceeds go to a new scholarship fund, and Concord Mayor Bill Veroneau presents the Charron family with a plaque proclaiming the day Jeremy Charron Day.
April 30, 1963: New Hampshire establishes the nation’s first modern state-run lottery.
April 30, 1965: Gov. John King cuts the ribbon at the grand opening of New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord. Tuition for state residents will be $300 a year. Out-of-staters will pay $800.
May 1, 2003: A Merrimack County judge sentences Mark Haskins, 33, and Edward MacDonald, 46, to prison for killing Rose Yeaton almost five years ago. The house-bound 91-year-old was brutally beaten to death in her Fisherville Road home. Judge Edward Fitzgerald gives Haskins 40 years to life and MacDonald 20 years to life.
May 1, 1891: By custom, Concord’s May Horn ushers in a day of celebrating the final escape from winter. The horn is peculiar to Concord. “The “oldest inhabitant” cannot recall a first day of May in his boyhood when the din of the horn did not reverberate in some wee hour,” the Monitor reports.
May 1, 1903: After 48 years of Prohibition, New Hampshire begins issuing licenses for liquor sales.
May 1, 1925: The Granite Monthly magazine reports approvingly that Concord, Hillsboro, Goffstown, Peterborough and Milford are all planning new high schools. “If we are to believe what some people say, that the young folks of today are headed nowhere in particular and in a hurry to get there, we are at least glad to know they are to be educated on the way.”
May 2, 2003: The state Supreme Court upholds the conviction of Joseph Whittey, meaning that the 42-year-old who strangled Yvonne Fine of Concord 22 years ago will spend the rest of his life in prison. Whittey had asked the Supreme Court for a new trial, arguing that the DNA technology used to convict him of first-degree murder had not been sufficiently tested.
May 2, 2001: The temperature in Concord hits 91 degrees, the hottest it’s been on this date since 1930. Meanwhile, in Laconia, Lake Winnipesaukee’s ice-out is finally declared – 10 days shy of the record for the latest ice-out.
May 2, 1977: Two hundred seventy-seven of the 1,414 anti-nuclear demonstrators arrested at Seabrook on April 30 are moved to the armory on Concord Heights.
May 2, 1966: Former vice president Richard Nixon lands at Concord Airport for a speech at the Highway Hotel. Of the situation in Vietnam, he says: “We cannot tolerate the administration’s apparent resignation to a five to 10-year war in South Vietnam because this will eventually mean an American defeat.”
May 3, 2003: The Old Man of the Mountain, New Hampshire’s iconic symbol, the stone deity who watched over the state’s residents and countless visitors, lost its 10,000-year battle with gravity sometime over the last two rain-soaked days, crumbling mysteriously to the ground in a stream of small stone pieces.
May 3, 1967: Concord High School bars the press from covering Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s appearance at the school. Referring to a recent incident in which he was prohibited from speaking at Yale University, Wallace says: “I am glad they are barred – and not me – this time.”
May 3, 1943: Because of rampant juvenile delinquency, Concord churches ask the city to impose a 9 p.m. curfew on teenagers. Police Chief Arthur McIsaac says he’ll consider the request.
May 4, 1943: The Concord police say they have solved hundreds of thefts with the arrest of 16 high school and junior high school boys. For the most part, the crimes involve objects taken from cars and houses. The boys range in age from 13 to 16.
May 4, 1944: Fire kills 2,000 chickens at Harold Ford’s farm on Loudon Road.
